Noodles and tire pumps

Sometimes I hold off on writing, because I keep thinking that the story should follow a plot line or pathway to somewhere. Either she is getting better, (not likely with Alzheimer’s) or she is getting worse every day. But she’s not. 

Everyday is a new day, and events don’t follow the expected progression. Or regression. 

A month ago we thought she was near death. Then she came back. For a while she was sleeping most of the day, and losing lots of weight because she was too sleepy to eat. She couldn’t even open her mouth to let us feed her.

We decided to cut the daytime dose of Haldol to see if that would help. Also, because her left hand is swollen and hard, similar to arthritis, they put her on a Medrol pack. I might not have the spelling right, but it is a quick heavy dose of steroid to reduce inflammation.

She’s awake now. Yesterday when I was feeding her some noodles with spinach, carefully cut into little tiny pieces and put in her mouth on the end of the fork, she got impatient and reached around with her right hand and grabbed a handful of noodles and stuffed them in her mouth. 

I laughed and told her, “You go, girl! We’ll wash that hand and your face later.” She ate several strawberries and pineapple chunks for dessert, too.

This morning a thunderstorm came through, so I took her outside under the entrance, and we just sat and listened to the noise, marveled at the flashes of lightning, and enjoyed the cool breeze. 

Since my birthday is approaching, my son Wesley sent a gift card for Roma’s Italian Restaurant here in Durant. The card was enough for myself, daughter Darlene, and nephew Joe. We all gorged ourselves on great Italian food.

After the meal, Darlene had to pick up a prescription, so we drove to the drugstore, and then we drove toward her apartment. As we drove past Featherstone Assisted Living Home where we had just put Carolyn to bed an hour or so earlier, we saw an ambulance pull in the driveway with all the lights flashing.

Fearing the worst, I swung into the driveway and drove to the back door to check to see if Carolyn was OK. My heart sank, as her room was empty - the covers pulled back on the bed.

I swiftly went to the front where the ambulance was parked, and was relieved to see Carolyn sitting in her wheelchair, quietly crying. I went up and hugged her, told her who I was, (I always do that now) and reassured her it was going to be alright. The resident on the gurney going out the door has COPD and was having breathing difficulty.

I asked the aide on duty why Carolyn was not in bed, and they told me they found her out of bed crawling across the floor. There seems to be no happy medium between zonked out asleep all day and so restless and agitated she can’t stay in bed. 

She can’t stand, she can’t walk, she has severe difficulty talking, and one hand is useless, but she won’t stay down. At least with the changes to her room with the low bed, tumbling mats, etc. she is no longer hurting herself or risking broken bones. We only have to treat the sores and blisters on her knees and toes now and then.

I rode my mountain bike to Calera and back last week, about 12 miles total, and it would have been uneventful except I ran over a nail coming back into town and had a flat tire.

I always ride prepared when riding cross country, so I flipped the bike over, took out the back wheel and removed the tube from inside the tire. I inserted the new tube I was carrying and tried to pump it full of air with a small tire pump I keep attached to the frame above the pedals. However, the silly little rubber ring that is supposed to hold onto the tube kept slipping off, and I couldn’t get any air in the tire at all. It was leaking out faster than I was pumping it in.

Looking around, I found myself right in front of a auto body shop. Whoa! They got to have an air compressor. So I went in the open door and asked the young man sitting behind the front desk if they had any compressed air, and could I get some.

He laughed and said, “We sure do, and we’ve been watching you for ten minutes, wondering when you would give up and come in here!” He took me into the shop, handed me the air chuck, and we had the tire filled in seconds. He wouldn’t let me pay him, and we discussed where I had ridden that day, how long it took and my age. I think he was impressed.

The next day I drove down to Sherman, Texas, to the bicycle shop there and asked about a new tire pump. He didn’t have any hand pumps with a threaded connector, which I was holding out for, but he showed me a little device that looks like an asthma inhaler. You screw it on the tube, screw in a little CO2 cartridge and the tire inflates immediately, with no pumping. 

I bought it on the spot!

I also browsed over his collection of racing bikes, the ones with tall gears and skinny tires, and was amazed at the engineering improvements since I last looked at one. I had trouble even finding the shift levers. They are part of the brake calipers now. I am now considering buying one, especially since they cost half what I assumed they would cost.

Twelve years ago my Trek cost $1200. These Giant racing bikes are selling for $620. I’ve got a birthday coming up soon. I think I mentioned that before. I just might treat myself.

I got home and spent a couple of hours building a spreadsheet with the formulas for calculating my gear tooth ratios in all 24 gears, how far the bicycle travels with one turn of the pedals, and how fast I am moving at one pedal turn per second. The most important number was the top speed in gear 24, which turned out to be 17.7 miles per hour.

Yeah, I know. I’m a nerd. You bet!

So I need to find the ratios on the racing bike and see what the top speed is in the highest gear. My mountain bike has lots of low gears for climbing slopes, but this is pretty flat country. The racing bike has only 16 gears, but they are taller gears for going fast on the level. 

Inquiring minds want to know—how fast can I go?

I keep thinking about the Magnolia Days Bike Tour.

I couldda been a contender

A Day at the Races

Today was the much anticipated day of the races. Officially the Magnolia Bike Tour. This is the twenty second year of the event, and I was curious how big it was going to be, since this was my first one here.

I had decided to limit my distance to the 42 mile loop, rather than try for the whole 67 mile loop up through Milburn. I had ridden this route just two days ago, and was pretty sure I could do it again.

The day dawned still and already muggy with high humidity. The Oklahoma  heat had not come yet at 6:00 AM when my alarm went off, but there was no doubt it was coming. They even warned us of the possibility of scattered rain storms through the day.

I arrived at the Durant High School at 7:00 AM and there were already lots of cars and bicycles there at the starting place. Everybody was tuning bikes and airing up tires in preparation for the start at 8:00 o’clock.

I had aired up my tires at the house before I left. I took them right up to 50 lbs. They both hold pressure well, as Oklahoma doesn’t have nearly the amount of puncture vines as Nevada does (they call them goat heads here) and the tires stay up for weeks at a time. That never happened in Nevada, even if I put “Green Slime” in the tubes to seal them.

I slowly pedaled around the parking area, mainly to see if I was the only guy riding a mountain bike in the tour. I only found one other young guy riding his mountain bike. His name was Jordan, and he admitted that he came in last the previous year, which was his first ride. I hoped we would be able to ride together part of the way, since we were similarly handicapped by our bikes.

Otherwise, the range of road racing bikes was spectacular. I saw machines I had never seen before, such as two recumbent streamliners from Dallas, Texas, with bodies made from carbon, I assume, and tricycle disc wheels that tilted the machines into the curve as they steered.

There were several bikes with carbon frames and large semi disc wheels that only had about half enough spokes to reduce weight, I’m sure. Some of them must have been right at the physical stress limit riding on Oklahoma “pavement”.

I even saw one couple riding a tandem bike (bicycle built for two) and they had matching Spandex suits. I felt a pang of deja vu, as Carolyn and I rode a tandem now and then, back when that was possible for her. We first rented one on Catalina Island on a vacation trip, and cycled over every paved road on the island. 

All together there were over one hundred cyclists participating in the tour. My local friends think I’m crazy for riding as many miles as I do. They should have come out this morning. If I’m crazy, it must have been weekend pass day at the Oklahoma State Hospital for the Mentally Irregular. I am trying really hard to be politically correct here. 

They had three police cars with all the red and blue light flashing to guide all the bicycles out onto the highway and hold traffic back as the huge mass of pedalers churned out onto the course. I started about halfway back, since I intended to ride the middle course of 42 miles.

The cluster of bikes quickly strung out as we headed north on North First St. out of town. When we all came to the side road to Armstrong, everybody peeled off in that direction, but my understanding was that the main course stayed on Hwy 78, so I assumed that they were all doing the short 24 mile course to Caddo and back.

So I broke away and went straight up the highway to the junction turning west to Cobb and Brown. As I got lined up going west, I glanced back to see that I was all alone. Well, I was the loner, anyway. I was the only one wearing Levis. Everybody else seemed to have bare legs with Spandex shorts. 

What can I say? I come from Nevada, where iconoclasm is a virtue, and curmudgeons get a lot of respect. Besides, I have terrible psoriasis all over both legs, and I don’t like to show them off. My elbows are bad enough.

So as I pedaled west, my mind went to the story of “Wrongway Corrigan”. I had figured out by now that they must have reversed the route from the earlier map I copied, which meant that I should beat them all to Nida, since I am going the wrong way. At Nida, I had the choice of turning around and following some of the bikers back to Durant. That would reduce the miles to only 34, but hey, I just came for the tee shirt anyway. 

My bike is not in the same league as all these racing bikes. Four or five years ago I came in first in class in a race in Paradise Valley, Nevada, and got a beautiful belt buckle at the finish, but there will be no trophies for me today. With the heat rising the way it was, I will have accomplished something if I ride in still pedaling and not in the back of a pickup.

I stopped at Nida, drank a Gator Ade and ate a banana. When some of the bicyclists finally got there coming from the other direction, I followed them back toward Durant. I am using the term “following” loosely. They ran off and left me, of course, and the only nice thing about it all, is when they went by me, the draft from their speed helped break the head wind for me.

I stopped and chatted with a guy at the Brown Baptist Church, where they had a rest stop with water, Gator Ade and protein bars. They also had several jars of dill pickles, which seemed to be very popular with the hottest riders. Seems I learn something every day. I didn’t try it, though.

The rest of the trip back was uneventful. As soon as we turned back east at Brown, we got a tailwind that scooted us right along. I ran out of gears high enough on my bike, so I got to coast long stretches when I couldn’t pedal fast enough. 

When I got back to the Finish line at Durant High School they had tables set up with all the drinks you wanted and hot dogs on the grill. Lots of benches and chairs, too. A couple of young riders were doing slow circles out in the parking area and I asked them if they had started late, joking of course. No, they were just cooling down, they said. I noticed that on the side of the circle with the wind at your back, you got hotter.

I figured a better cool down tactic was to sit down and have another Gator Ade. 

Well, this describes the morning pretty well. I left the High School and drove back to the house, showered off the sweat and put on my new tee shirt. Then I went to Featherstone to relieve Darlene, who was staying with Carolyn while I went out biking. She is still in that awareness mode, and cried several times today. We just hold her hand and reassure her that we will take care of her always.

I left her just after supper in the front lobby watching a movie and eating popcorn. I normally put her to bed, but the aides said they would be glad do it. 

For some reason I was extra tired this evening.